In my mind, this was going to be yet another post apologizing for the lack of posting, swearing to do better, blah blah blah. But then I realized — you don’t give a shit. So what the hell am I so worried about?!

As the metaphorical-you might’ve guessed, I’ve been a little burnt out. On comics (superhero comics, mostly), the lack of interaction here (even from friends, for Christ’s sake) and the online comic book community.

Oh, man, the comic book “community” — with a few exceptions, it’s the most insular, Mean-Girls-on-the-prom-committee group of people like I haven’t seen since I was first able to drive myself somewhere. When I first started blogging about comic books I was inspired by three people who had gotten there way before I did; since then, one has “retired,” another is making his own comics, and the last is part of a group that tends to be very pleased with itself. I’ll leave it to you, Cricket-in-my-Pocket, to conjecture on who is who. But at one point, these writers (and others) reminded me of the joy I got out of comics, so much so that it made me want to share that with other people, too.

There is very little joy in the comics community now. Or in comics in general, for that matter.

But I’ve decided that’s really not my problem. My problem has been listening to it, and I’m going to try to avoid doing that now. As the Joker so wisely said once, sometimes towns need an enema, and that goes for brains that have been crammed with bullshit, too. What does that mean for you, the imaginary reader? More Kalimán, more Adventures in Sound, more talk about comics from smaller publishers. And while I’ve caught a lot of hell — deservedly — for dropping the ball on it, the Movie Club will make a reappearance.

Other than that, no promises. I can’t promise any of it will be good (though I’ll try). I can’t promise it’ll be on a regular schedule (though I’ll try — for me more than you, sorry). I can promise, though, that this will be the last self-indulgent, rant-filled post I squeeze out here.

I’m tired of bitterness and cynicism and cooler-than-thou posturing. I’m ready for some joy.

4 Comments on “It’s not me, it’s you”

I don’t comment often, but that’s because I can never think of anything interesting to say. Kinda the problem with my own blog (bitter, bitter laughter)

I think I know which three bloggers you’re talking about and generally agree with you, though I’ve also noticed the same attitudes with every other kind of blogging — the big dogs don’t like to socialize with the little dogs…

And I’ve been getting more burned out on comics, too. DiDio and Quesada are doing everything they can to get me to give up on the Big Two. There’s still Dark Horse, IDW, Boom, Red 5, Image, and others, but I worry that at any time, DC or Marvel will buy the others out and shut ’em down… :/

I have to admit to being one of the people who rarely comments, and yet I get frustrated when I perceive a lack of comments on my own blogging efforts. I have met the enemy, and I am him.

I have been put off by some of the more reactionary commentary coming from the comic book fan community recently (see: attacking anyone who dared say The Avengers was anything less than Citizen Kane, see: the racist bile aimed at Donald Glover, see: the attitude towards creators when they dare suggest that these billion-dollar corporations share some of the wealth), but I’ve mostly just tried to turn it off. It’s hard, to be sure.

Scott: I know what you mean – there is an insularity that seems to bloom in online communities. I think I find it especially disappointing in the comics community because, for the most part, shouldn’t we know better?

And yeah, aren’t those companies putting out some great stuff? I’m happily amazed by Image and the direction they’ve been going in!

Rob: I’m bad about it, too. I need to get better, because otherwise I can’t complain. 🙂 The reactionary stuff is definitely off-putting and frustrates me to no end. Something that also bothers me is the way there’s this sort of echo chamber of some people talking to each other and no one else. To me, that really seems to be the comic book club house at its worst.

SW: That’s exactly what I keep hoping for, and what I got into blogging for in the first place — a conversation. Obviously, I don’t expect it to be constant (in some places you see continuous “brilliant”s and “genius”s and, ugh, sycophants just make me queasy), but isn’t the whole point of this to communicate? Otherwise, it would be much easier for me to just sit here and talk out loud to myself.

But you’re absolutely right — it’s got to be something you do for yourself.